It cannot be said Amnesty International has taxed its resources to denounce human rights crimes in Kashmir. But its Indian chapter Amnesty India is actually endorsing the occupation & use of live ammunition against unarmed protesters.
If Amnesty International has any good sense left–& that is not apparent from its shameful reporting on Israeli human rights crimes in Gaza–they will toss Amnesty India out of the organization.
It’s not as if they’ll risk donations for such criminal compromises with the barbarisms of the Indian army since Modi is certainly making up for lost revenues in substantial hush monies. But the reputation of Amnesty will be shot to hell. And it’s hanging by a thread now.
Saw a posting on Twitter saluting the doctors of Kashmir “who are working tirelessly beyond their shifts to treat the injured.” May we also include other medical personnel & the ambulance medics & drivers being assaulted & vandalized as they carry the injured to hospital. Fifty such assaults have been recorded.
Who can also forget the medical personnel who served so selflessly in Gaza during the 2014 siege when ambulances were also attacked & hospitals bombed by Israel? Or those serving the war zones of Yemen, Syria, & Iraq & the refugee camps in Greece & elsewhere? Or those in the Arab uprisings, particularly in Bahrain where they were prosecuted & jailed for treating injured protesters? Or those who at their own risk treated the Ebola outbreak in West Africa?
Medicine, at least in the US, has become tainted as elite, money-grubbing careerism so it is an honor to salute those who live its mission to heal & bring solace to the injured & dying.
Someone recently compared me to one of the great women figures of socialism who was murdered by the German government. I have no such pretensions to glory. I’m an activist & writer committed to human rights & justice as tens of thousands of others around the world.
But I am not on the front lines of struggle against oppression as Palestinians, Kashmiris, Dalits & Adivasi in India, the US Black community, & Rohingya in Myanmar, refugees & immigrants around the world. It is from those struggles that the great revolutionary figures of today will emerge.
It’s just the case that white men write the histories that get published & assume all the glory but the oppressed have always produced great leaders, thinkers, & activists. Part of struggle is to retrieve & learn from the histories they have made.
The Facebook wall of Syed Ali Geelani, a leading political figure in Kashmir, has been deleted for sharing a photo of Burhan Wani because it didn’t meet FB’s community standards.
Of course the attempt to erase Burhan’s image & memory assures he will be immortalized as a freedom fighter.
Greater Kashmir has tweeted this article about the role of Rollie Mukherjee’s art in exposing the occupation.
We could not be prouder of her & managed honorable mention for posting her powerful work showing the important role of art in giving voice to oppression.
It would be better Amnesty India remain silent & be thought cowardly than open its mouth in support of nationalist barbarism. For shame Amnesty. You have a mandate for human rights which you just pissed all over.
The Democratic convention starts today & loath though I am to stoop to carnival for politics & entertainment, it may be necessary. After all I am running against them.
It isn’t fruitful for supporters of lesser evil politics & of Clinton to take umbrage at our differences & come campaigning for her on my wall. Believe me, I’m old enough to know–& if you’re over 10, you should be too–that there is no point in that except to whip up adrenalin. Why waste life energy on defending two-bit hacks?
My experience is that it’s only a few sentences before the denunciations & scurrilous accusations start & that’s when my trigger finger starts to twitch uncontrollably (this is Texas after all) & I hit the block button rather than blow your head off.
Saw this quote on Facebook: “I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like Hillary Clinton. Hold your nose & vote. There’s a Nazi at the gate.”
That’s what US politics comes to when too many ignore principles & vote expedience. US electoral “democracy” is ending with such bathos & a whimper when the fraudulence should be opposed with a roar.
